Korea Under Japanese Rule

Randomly encountering this video from the 1930s on Korea under Japanese rule brought back memories of Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910–1945 by Atkins. We highly recommend it for a look at the way colonialism and culture interacted in the context of Japanese occupation of Korea. It brings to mind a similar book on Haiti and the US during the US Occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934 by Renda. Of course, the US policymakers, marines, and anthropologists did not see themselves as sharing a "racial" origin with Haitians, but a shared discourse of primitivism shaped both colonial ventures. We suspect Haiti also played a role in sparking the racial interests of white America and the West in "black" peoples during the interwar years, like the Japanese interest in Korean culture, shamanism, and superstition.